Re: Overflowing a Long

Robert Morley <rmorley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I'm not talking about the language in general (which I think is fairly
elegant overall), I'm talking about the file handling in particular. For
example, in what way is

Open "C:\test.dat" For Random Access Read Write Lock Read Write As #1
Len=512

in ANY way elegant?

It really couldn't be simpler! That's the point.

Open [filename] For [usage] As [handle]

Maybe you had to "grow up" on a command line to appreciate the clarity there?

While that's certainly the worst of them,

I see it as *far* superior to any sort of object-based method, for both ease of use
and comprehension. Any student programmer can grasp the fundamentals of this syntax
in the first week of courses.

the Print #, Get # and similar statements aren't exactly tidy in some of their
permutations either.

They're pretty danged straight-forward, too.

Object-orientation would have gone a long way to
solving this inelegance, but I guess we're any number of years too late for
that at this point. :)

Only for accomplished snobs. For beginners, that means they need to spend *weeks*,
at least, getting up to speed before they can even begin to accomplish anything
useful. Not to mention, file i/o is the *last* place you want to introduce
unnecessary overhead. So objects are inherently inefficient, in addition to being
opaque. Toss newbs into the mix, and you have just prescribed a royal mess.
--
..NET: It's About Trust!
http://vfred.mvps.org


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Relevant Pages

  • Re: Overflowing a Long
    ... I'm not talking about the language in general (which I think is fairly ... elegant overall), I'm talking about the file handling in particular. ... but file handling is not its strength, either in terms of raw power (I ...
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  • Re: Overflowing a Long
    ... elegant overall), I'm talking about the file handling in particular. ... Get # and similar statements aren't exactly tidy in some of their ... That is very close to what happens at the API level, ...
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